As universities grapple with reducing budgets, their autonomy from government comes increasingly under scrutiny, and traditional academic values such as academic freedom come under threat. As a consequence, a recent story in Times Higher Education concerning a recent attempt to define academic freedom in detail, makes for fascinating reading (with added links):

What is freedom? Choosing your v-c

By Rebecca Attwood

Proposal is key part of plan for European ‘Magna Charta’ on scholars’ rights.

Academics would be given the right to appoint their own vice-chancellors under plans for a Europe-wide definition of academic freedom. The proposals have been tabled by Terence Karran, a senior academic in the Centre for Educational Research and Development at the University of Lincoln …

One of the cornerstones of the proposals is the need for academic self-governance. Setting out his plans in the journal Higher Education Policy, Dr Karran says: “To guarantee academic freedom, academic staff must … be able to determine who shall serve as rector. … Where possible, the rector should be appointed from within the university by a democratic process with the support of the majority of academic staff. … Where the appointment is external … academic staff should have the major role in determining (it).”

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One of my favourite blogs is Erin O’Connor’s Critical Mass, a blog dedicated to commentary on the state of academe in general and American higher education in particular. She is invariably interesting and unfailingly provocative, if not always right; and her discussions of academic freedom in all its guises have helped to clarify what I think about such matters. Last week, she blogged about a new report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA, where she is a Research Fellow) on Protecting the Free Exchange of Ideas. How Trustees Can Advance Intellectual Diversity on Campus (pdf); its abstract:

This report features ten best practices, gleaned from colleges and universities across the country, for promoting the free exchange of ideas in and out of the classroom. Since intellectual diversity is at the core of any true university education, the report commends institutions that have taken action, urges them to keep at it, and exhorts other boards to play their proper leadership role–working, of course, with administrators, faculty, alumni, and donors–in guaranteeing and enriching the intellectual environment on campus.

The ten principles discussed in detail in the report are

1. Survey the campus climate.
2. Incorporate intellectual diversity into institutional statements and policies.

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A little while ago, Brian Tamanaha on Balkinization raised the question of what is the right response where professors insult in class; his post began as follows [with some added links]:

The November issue of National Jurist has an article about a recent spate of law professors getting into trouble for comments inside or outside of the classroom that apparently offended students. According to the article, a Wisconsin professor made comments about Hmong men [IHT] in the context of discussing cultural practices that might be invoked as a defense against criminal charges. A Quinnipiac professor sent an email to students on his distribution list that “derided� them “for their concepts of how poor people and ethnic minorities are represented within the American legal system� [Quinnipiac Chronicle]. A John Marshall professor was reprimanded for asking a Jewish student “whether his religious training contributed to Jews passing the bar at higher rates than African Americans� [De Paul]. The article did not mention the most recent example of such controversy, involving a professor at Connecticut who showed a film in class, pausing at a scene that offended a few of the students [Law.com].

I was reminded of this as I listened last night to Dean Rod Smolla‘s Inaugural Lecture at WLU (poster above) on

Freedom of Expression and Religion on the Modern Campus: Academic Freedom at Public and private Universities

His basic theme was that First Amendment doctrine is capable of explaining and guiding the development of the principles of academic freedom in the modern American university.…

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